Kind of Cursed

by Stephanie Fournet

  “Yeah, that’s true,” I acknowledge. “But—like you said—what they would have wanted can’t be applied to a world without them.”

  She blows a breath out of her nose, her bird of prey look turning wry. “I knew those words would come back to haunt me.”

  I’m supposed to be off on Saturday, but Dr. Loftin calls me in to help with an emergency surgery. Dachshund versus golf cart. Broken carpus and radius with tissue abrasions. Not a hopeless case, but one that requires time and skill. This is definitely one of those instances when two vets are better than one.

  We finish up after closing time, and I transfer the little Dachshund to the emergency clinic where she can be kept under observation for the rest of the weekend. By the time I get home, it’s after two p.m., and I need a shower.

  And that’s where it happens.

  The prick.

  No, not that kind of prick.

  The one that feels like an acupuncture needle deep down inside me.

  I felt it before. The last time. Except that was on the right side, and this one is definitely the left. I go completely still under the shower spray with the certain knowledge that within the confines of my body… it’s not just me.

  It’s us. Me and baby.

  And not just any baby. Not even just my baby. But ours. Mine and Luc’s.

  It’s as though the water rushing over me is a benediction. A blessing the angels have poured over me.

  And whether Luc wants me or not. Or whether he wants us or not, this baby—this blessing a thousand times over—is wanted and loved. Already.

  And if we have to go it alone, so be it.

  Chapter Thirty

  LUC

  Millie won’t talk to me. Not really.

  I know she’s upset. She’s been upset since I told her about the condom. She’s keeping me at arm’s length, and I’ll be damned if she isn’t finding ways to have the kids around when we’re together.

  But, as usual, she insists that she’s fine.

  Whoever thought that someone could grow to hate that four-letter word? I know she’s not fine because I keep catching her watching me.

  And it’s not the way she used to watch me. Back before I kissed her. She watched me then like she couldn’t help herself. The same way I couldn’t help watching her.

  Now, it’s like she’s on the lookout for sudden moves. And maybe I’m doing the same. Waiting to see if she’ll bolt.

  I dare her to try. I’m not letting her go anywhere.

  It’s Sunday night, and for once this week, there’s not a game or a homework project or a recital. And I might just strangle my mother.

  My plan was to pay the kids to babysit themselves again. Millie and I haven’t even been on a real date. She deserves one, and I want to give it to her.

  But Mami called Millie an hour after she got home from work yesterday. She wants us to come over for Sunday Supper. Fried catfish tacos and churros with chocolate sauce. And Millie and her crew are suckers for anything homemade.

  I can’t really blame them. The Delacroixes have been eating takeout for weeks.

  Maybe that’s what I should do for a first date—if ever I get to take her on one—make her a home-cooked meal. At my apartment. I wonder how much I’d have to pay the kids to keep Millie overnight.

  And if she’d ever agree to that.

  Right now, I’d take having her spend just a few minutes alone with me. Even under the same roof with the kids. Just ten minutes so I could kiss her deep. Remind her what we have.

  Okay, maybe twenty minutes.

  Maybe I can steal her away from the crowd at my parents’ house tonight. If Papi and Uncle Raul haven’t commandeered the den for a game of pool, that would be a great spot. Just a few minutes to wrap her in my arms and chase her tongue with mine, show her that she is safe with me. Show her that I want her. Tell her again that I love her.

  I pick up the Delacroixes at five-thirty. The twins vibrate with excitement. Emmett is practically levitating.

  Millie seems fine.

  At least, this is what I think until I hand her up into the Tundra, pressing my palm into the small of her back. She’s wound tighter than a guitar string. The kids are climbing into the back, arguing with each other, so I steal an opportunity.

  When her behind lands on the seat, I squeeze her thigh. Millie jumps, but at least she meets my eyes. And the expression in hers is guarded. Wary.

  I hate it.

  I squeeze her thigh again. “Before the end of the night,” I tell her, my voice low, for her ears only, “we’re talking. I don’t care how late it is.”

  Millie triple blinks. Her mouth falls open. Then closes. If I had to guess, she’s somewhere between startled and terrified. What the hell?

  She opens her mouth again, but suddenly her blue eyes are awash in regret. “I don’t know if I’m up for that tonight.”

  Not up for it? Talking to me?

  A trap door opens in my stomach. My mind immediately swings toward the worst possible scenario. I told her about the condom. She’s worried she’s pregnant. And now, despite giving me her love, she’s having doubts. About us.

  About me.

  “Why are you just standing there, Luc?” Emmett pipes up from the back seat, bouncing like he’s spring-loaded. “Let’s go!”

  Part of me wants to drag Millie inside and have this out now. But I grit my teeth and close her door.

  I drive, but the grip I have on the steering wheel is merciless. At first, my anger is a slow boil, just barely contained. She doesn’t want to talk to me? Fine. She doesn’t have the courage to tell me I’m not her first choice? That’s fucking fine, too. It’s not like I’m not used to that.

  Ronni couldn’t come out and say it. Left her phone with her messages open right where I’d see them. Right where I’d read her boss’s dirty texts.

  And Papi? Every time I talk to him, he comes as close as he can to saying he’d rather be pushing up daisies than watch me at the helm of the business.

  The heat of my anger and the acid burn of bitterness are good at first. Distracting. Consoling. But by the time we get to my parents’ house, I know they are just shields.

  Because if Millie doesn’t want me—if I’m not her first choice—it’ll slay me. It’ll hurt worse than anything.

  She’s mine. Mine in a way Ronni never was. Mine more than the business could ever be.

  Mine because in the short time I’ve known her, somehow, my heart has moved out of my chest and now beats inside her hands.

  We’ve said next to nothing on the drive over, relying on the kids’ chatter to fill the cab of the truck. And I’m grateful for them because they rush inside, through the garage door, into the kitchen, and the voices of Mami, Abuela, and my cousins rise in greeting. Millie slips inside, and I bring up the rear, forcing a smile at the excited crowd.

  The kitchen is so full, I have to squeeze in behind Millie to shut the door. Her hair smells like love. Selfishly, I lean in, pull her scent in deep. If I press her to talk tonight, this might be the last time I get close to her. I clasp a lock of her blazing hair between my fingers.

  “Dios ten piedad,” I whisper in prayer. “Por favor, déjame conservarla.”

  Millie turns, looking back at me over her shoulder. Her gaze is so warm and curious, it gives me hope. “What did you say?” she whispers, her eyes searching.

  I swear, I’m about to answer her truthfully, tell her that I’m begging God to let me keep her when Abuela, her face alight, pushes up from the kitchen table.

  “¡Dulce Cristo!” she cries at Millie, clasping her hands over her heart. “¡Estás embarazada!”

  “¿Qué?” Mami shouts, eyes wide.

  “¿Qué?” My aunt and cousins ask each other.

  “What?!” Mattie shrieks, turning to Millie, looking betrayed.

  Millie throws her hands up. “What? What did she say?”

  I drop a hand on Millie’s shoulder, but before I can say anything, Mattie blinks, her big eyes mor
e worried than ever. “She said you’re pregnant! Is it true?”

  Both Emmett and Harry whirl to face Millie, bug-eyed. “Seriously?” Emmett squawks, his surprise quickly morphing to excitement.

  I step beside Millie with one arm around her shoulder and one hand raised to calm everyone down.

  “Guys, no,” I say shaking my head. “I don’t know what Abuela is talking about but—”

  Abuela pokes a gnarled finger at us. “Anoche soñé que ustedes cinco entraron así como acaban de hacerlo…”

  “Last night I dreamed,” Mami translates for Millie and her family, “that the five of you walked in like you just did…”

  “Y Millie llevaba una camisa morada como esa,” Abuela says, pointing at Millie before pinching the fabric of her blouse between her fingers. The hair on the back of my neck stands at attention.

  “And Millie was wearing a purple shirt just like that,” Mami delivers, nodding to the purple top that Millie is wearing. At her words, Millie’s spine straightens beneath my arm.

  Abuela holds her hands out in front of her, making the universal shape of a pregnant belly. “Pero su vientre estaba creciendo con un crío dentro.”

  Aunt Luci clucks her tongue and gives Abuela an exasperated look. “That doesn’t mean anything. Eso fue solo un sueño.”

  “¿Solo un sueño?” Abuela throws up her hands. “¡Era una señal de los ángeles!”

  Aunt Luci rolls her eyes. “A sign from the angels? Really, Mami,” she mutters, not bothering to reply in Spanish.

  Abuela thrusts an emphatic hand toward Millie. “¡Solo mírala! Ella está brillando!”

  The gaze of every woman in my family lands on Millie.

  “She’s right. Millie is glowing,” Felicité murmurs.

  I glance down at Millie. Sure, her face is flushed with the embarrassment of all this attention, but beyond that, she is radiant. Her vanilla ice cream skin has never looked so brilliant. Her blue eyes shine with an almost angelic gleam.

  How could I not have noticed it earlier? She’s more beautiful than ever. By far, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Is the glow because—

  “Millie?” My throat is so dry her name comes out a rasp. “Is there something I should know?”

  She looks up at me dewy-eyed, her spice-colored lashes closing and opening like butterfly wings. “Well…” Uncertainty rings in the word. Something is on her mind, and she’s unsure about telling me.

  I take in the ten pairs of eyes watching us, her family and most of mine in that number, and I make a decision.

  “We aren’t doing this here,” I mutter, grabbing her hand.

  Millie still has her purse slung over her shoulder, and I don’t care. Leaving the crowd of our families slack-jawed and lobbing questions after us in two languages, I drag her out of the kitchen, through the living room, and up the stairs. Two bedrooms flank the top of the stairs, Abuela’s and Alex’s. Passing both doors, I am for the third in the middle and throw the bathroom door open.

  “Fucking God—Luc, what the hell?” Alex, shirtless and barefoot in jeans glares at me in outraged confusion.

  I rear back and Millie gasps. “Sorry, I—“

  But Alex’s gaze falls on Millie and his eyes light up. “Mattie’s here?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Millie mutters under her breath.

  “Yes. Go say hi. And give us some space, yeah?” I urge.

  My brother is moving past us before I even finish my suggestion.

  “But put a shirt on first,” Millie orders as he steps into the hall. She turns to me as he heads to his room. “One look at that, and she’d be—“

  “Stop.” I hold up a hand. “Wipe that thought out of your head.”

  Millie stares at me for a second. Then she gives me a sharp nod. “Right.”

  I hold out my hand, gesturing her toward the bathroom.

  She points. “Why—”

  “Because it’s the only place we’re guaranteed privacy.”

  “I wasn’t guaranteed privacy!” Alex calls from his room.

  I glower at his closed door. “Use the damn lock.”

  “It’s just me and Abuela up here,” he hollers back. “And she knocks.” His bedroom door opens, and Alex emerges, smoothing a T-shirt down over his chest. It’s white except for the letters LSD written in what looks like pink, yellow, and blue cake frosting.

  Millie narrows her eyes at the letters, and Alex looks down at his shirt. “Oh, don’t freak out, Millie,” he says, meeting her glare with a grin. “This LSD is the band. Not the drug.”

  “I know,” she says through clenched teeth. “Mattie’s been blasting ‘Angel in Your Eyes’ in her room the last three days.”

  Alex’s teeth flash. “Must be our song.”

  I grab Millie by the wrist before she can push my brother down the stairs. “Go,” I tell him.

  Still grinning, my brother high tails it down the stairs. Millie pulls out of my hold, stalks into the bathroom and folds in half on the edge of the tub. Her purse falls to the floor and she drops her head in her hands.

  “My God. She’ll be pregnant by New Year’s.”

  I step inside and close the door. I lock it for good measure and lean back against it.

  “She won’t get pregnant.”

  A curtain of red hair hides Millie’s face. “She will,” she moans. “We’re doomed.”

  I push from the door, moving to her, but she whips her head up, eyeing me with alarm. “We have to break up.”

  I’m not gonna lie. Even though I know she’s panicked and rattled and has her head in the wrong place, even though I know in my soul she is mine, her words land like a club to my gut.

  I take a deep breath and absorb the blow. I empty my lungs slowly. “Millie, why are you saying that?”

  Her bottom lip trembles, and I watch her swallow the emotion and steel her resolve. “Because. It’s the right thing to do.”

  A bitter laugh cracks from me. “Right for who?” I’m standing over her, and the posture feels all wrong. Everything about this feels wrong. So instead of sitting beside her on the tub, I sink to my knees, lay my hands on her knees.

  Her worried eyes are now level with mine. “Honestly?” she asks, her voice going squeaky. “All of us.”

  I shake my head. “Nope. Not good enough.”

  She clenches her jaw. “If I end this now, I can stop further damage.”

  “You end this now, there’ll be nothing but damage.” I speak the words like an oath. “It’ll wreck me.”

  Millie closes her eyes and deflates. “But at least you’d be free.”

  My face becomes a scowl. “Free to do what?” When she doesn’t answer me, doesn’t open her eyes, I reach for her shoulders and give her a little shake. “Where is this coming from?”

  So slowly, she lifts her eyelids and all I see is regret. “Nine months ago, I conceived a child with a man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with,” she says, and for the first time this Carter guy she’s barely mentioned seems like a real threat. I want to brain him with a hammer.

  “Even though it didn’t feel like it at the time, losing him was not the worst thing to happen to me.” Her eyes well, and she blinks and forces herself to smile. “It wasn’t even in the top three.”

  The fight goes out of me, and I take one hand from her knee and grip her fingers in mine. She doesn’t need to tell me her top three. Mother. Father. Child. In whatever order. Probably all tied for first.

  “When he left, he said something to me I can’t forget.” Her voice is choked, stricken.

  I squeeze her fingers, her knee. “What the hell did he say?” Yeah, I could still pick up that hammer.

  Millie inhales through her nose and empties her lungs with resignation. “That this—us—me and the kids—this instant family was too much to ask.” She shrugs. “And he was right.”

  “What?!”

  Millie puts her free hand to her heart. “I know it is. I mean, I’m twenty-four, and I would have never
signed up for this if we weren’t talking about Harry, Mattie, and Emmett. I don’t blame him.”

  “Millie, that—”

  “No, just listen.” She moves her hand from her heart to mine. “If we hadn’t lost the baby…” Millie bites her bottom lip and frowns. “I think Carter would have stayed.”

  She lets the words hang there, and maybe it makes me a dick, maybe it makes me the most awful person in the world, but I’m so glad that fucker bolted. I’m sorry Millie lost her baby, but if things would have gone differently, he’d be here, and I’d be building a kitchen for an incredible woman I’d never have the chance to touch.

  But I know, on my knees at her feet, I would have felt it. I’d have still gotten to watch her. Still gotten to know her. She’d be nine months pregnant, married to that asswipe, or home on maternity leave in my face every day, being her funny, fretful, fantastic self. And I would have felt the pull I felt that first night at the soccer game. Marveled over how strong she was. I’d have seen her patience and her passion, and I would have loved her anyway. Knowing I could never have her.

  “So, you see, I have to break up with you,” Millie says, jerking me from my fucked up day dream into an even more fucked up reality.

  “¿Qué carajo? Millie, this makes no sense. I’m not—”

  She grips the front of my shirt in her hand. “I’m all but positive I’m pregnant.”

  The air. The room. The whole world goes still. I’ve been ready for this. But even if you think you’re ready to hear those words, they still hit like a shock wave.

  I cover her hand at my heart. “Millie—”

  “But it’s fine,” she says, her voice high-pitched and falsely bright. Her smile is false too. “I’m about as set for life as someone who’s not a Kardashian could be. I can do whatever it takes. I can handle this by myself.”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You don’t have to prove to me you’re a good man. I already know,” she says, giving me a level look. “I’m not going to trap you and have you resenting me for the rest of our lives—”

  “I wouldn’t—”

  “Because that’s definitely what would have happened with Carter, and I won’t have it happen—”